


Method Acting

by ftld



Series: Call Your Name [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27801823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftld/pseuds/ftld
Summary: It takes until he is nineteen before Tooru comprehends that there are many, many types of love in the world.Or, Oikawa pines.  The b-side to Smaller Designs.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: Call Your Name [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019386
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Method Acting

**Author's Note:**

> A few things of note before we get started, because I am really not sure how to tag this. I guess the most important tags are “pre-relationship” and “angst”:
> 
> 1) This takes place over chapters 1-4 (not 5) of Smaller Designs and assumes that has been read first. There is close to zero recycled content (with a couple early exceptions).
> 
> 2) This is angsty af and it never really stops so buckle up.
> 
> 3) The breaks are text messages. I couldn’t decide how to format them and then I gave up.
> 
> 4) This thing is a monster. A legitimate monster.
> 
> It started as little snippets to nail down some history and a timeline, then it was some random scenes, then a 5k word outtake, then a 12k word side-story type thing, and now it is this 18.5k word monstrosity full of angst, pining, bad decisions, really stupid questions about laundry, jealousy, greed, more angst, some angsty pining, some pining while angsting, and Bokuto (and angsting about Bokuto).
> 
> I don’t even know how this happened. What the hell is even in there?

19-July-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_We can_ _’t wait to have you home for the weekend!_  
_Safe travels, we_ _’ll see you soon._  
_Love,  
Auntie_

* * *

**_  
_** Tooru learns not every house is like his when he is eight years old and his family moves next door to the Iwaizumis.  
  
In the Iwaizumi house is a mother who greets him with a hug, holds him tight to her chest and lifts his feet from the floor to twirl him around in rapid circles that make his head spin. There’s a father who pats his shoulder and helps set up a child-sized net to play volleyball. Iwaizumi-san sits in the middle of the make-shift court in the backyard so he’s down at their height and sets the ball for Tooru and Hajime while they _slam_ their tiny palms into it as hard as they can. He beams, proud and happy, and ruffles their hair every time they come close enough.  
  
The Iwaizumis have family dinners. Family breakfasts. Movie night every Saturday and a kotatsu that’s always out no matter the season. Tooru crawls beneath it with Hajime; they poke their little heads and shoulders out with a bowl of popcorn between them and ankles crossed in secret where no one can see. In the Iwaizumi house there is nothing but love, love, love: enough for Tooru to roll around in it, breathe it deep in his lungs. He soaks it into his skin and muscles, straight down to his bones.  
  
So, Tooru thinks it is completely understandable that it takes until he is nineteen years old before he comprehends that there are many, many types of love in the world.  
  
Tooru and Hajime’s apartment in Tokyo is another Iwaizumi house—it’s Hajime’s house—and they have nightly dinners. They have a kotatsu neither Tooru nor Hajime wants to bother getting out of the closet, instead choosing to curl up in blankets despite the summer heat and poke each other with wriggling toes while they fight for space on the couch. Hajime smiles at Tooru over his books strewn over their table, take-out and snacks scattered between the pens and notebooks, and Tooru is dizzy.  
  
Tooru is just drowning in all this love. It never leaves; it never abates. It is endless and unrestrained, even all the way down in Tokyo.  
  
When they come home the weekend of his birthday, Auntie spins Tooru in circles, laughing and squeezing him tight, and it is different. Not in the way that she has changed, or their relationship has been altered—but more that his perspective has suddenly shifted and he’s looking at all the little pieces that make up his life from another angle. They don’t fit together as he thought. This wonderful feeling that Tooru has missed wraps around him, holds him close, and it is a completely separate thing from what he feels for Hajime.  
  
With Hajime there is a quiet security: a complicated mass burrowed into his chest and curled up next to his heart.  
  
Saturday night is still movie night. Instead of hiding under the kotatsu, they hide in Hajime’s bedroom with a movie Tooru chose without paying attention to what it was. Hajime settles down on the futon instead of in his own bed, sheets carelessly twisted around his waist and legs. The fan battles it out with the summer heat. As Hajime drifts to sleep, Tooru slips his fingers through his hair. Tooru’s head falls to rest on the mattress behind him. He closes his eyes.  
  
Desire is a familiar companion for Tooru. He lives a life of ambition, has surges of jealousy and waves of lust like anyone else. Tooru doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything so much as he wants to keep running his fingers through Hajime’s soft hair, his sleepy breath warm against Tooru’s legs. His heart seizes; his fingers slip to touch the shell of Hajime’s ear, the sharp edge of his jaw. If he doesn’t think to keep breathing, he’s sure he’ll stop.  
  
As a child, Tooru came to the Iwaizumi house to feel wanted and safe. The love here is a mixture of so many things: from the shoes at the door; to family breakfast in the morning; and the little play net Iwaizumi-san bought when Tooru and Hajime were eight years old and only learning to be friends. Tooru always knew he carried some of that love with him to Tokyo, but he didn’t realize how much, he didn’t realize which part. It’s not a single thing, it’s many, and the biggest, most important part of it—the part he _wants_ —is Hajime.  
  
Head tilted back against the mattress behind them, Tooru breathes in all the different loves in the Iwaizumi house and waffles only seconds before resolving to keep this wondrous feeling buried in the depths of his chest where he can protect it with his life. He embraces it; it’s _part_ of him.  
  
Tooru is not giving it up. He won’t ever let it out. No one will be allowed to take it away.

* * *

  
22-July-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_I hope you have a wonderful week at school and study hard._  
_We_ _’re proud of you!_  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_

* * *

_  
_ At some point in his life, Tooru is sure he’s had a weirder morning—he just can’t think of it off the top of his head. People rushing off on their way to work give him odd looks. The rising sun washes the whole city in vibrant shades of orange and red: glowing and ominous. His jeans collect grass stains as he crawls around the park collecting flowers, and it’s not the strangest thing Tooru has ever done. It can’t be.  
  
“I say you’re only at about an eight out of ten,” Makki says, his voice tinny through the cheap headset Tooru bought at the convenience store down the street. Tooru has a better headset at home—bluetooth and high-quality—but he hadn’t realized he didn’t want to do this alone until he was already out of the house. “That time with the turtle and spray-paint, now _that_ was a ten.”  
  
This is a stupid idea. It’s a concept that’s been explained to him by at least three girls in breathy, idolizing whispers of, ‘it’s _so_ romantic!’ that Tooru is purposefully warping to suit his twisted purposes—but Makki is right, at least it’s no turtle-graffiti.  
  
“It feels like it’ll be best if they’re all the same color. Consistency and all.” Tooru grumbles and rips another handful of multi-colored wildflowers from a shady patch of dirt and grass and shoves them in a plastic sandwich bag.  
  
“Oh, agreed. I think pink.” Makki is such a good friend. “You need two good handfuls to really get the point across. Go big or go home as they say. Also, can you get video? I want to see the look on Iwaizumi’s face when you profess your unrequited love to him in front of everyone.”  
  
“This isn’t about Iwa-chan,” Tooru lies.  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
The notification chime sounds. Tooru ignores it.  
  
Miho is demanding, edges in on intolerable, and she’s been texting him non-stop all morning. She wants all of his time and attention, wants to twirl their brief flirtation into a whirlwind romance, sure to run out of gas and sputter to a stop as quickly as it started. In the past, Tooru’s been able to deal with that because he wants to be loud and demanding of everyone’s attention, too. It’s fun, getting wrapped up in someone for a few weeks and forgetting the world.  
  
This time, Tooru doesn’t have the patience. He wants this distraction gone now because, well, the answer to Miho’s pointed and harsh question about who he’d rather spend his time with is Hajime. She can poke and prod all she wants. Tooru is bordering dangerously on the cusp of answering her needling with, _‘Yeah, that’s right, I’m more into him than you, what of it?’_  
_  
_ “It’s about nosy girls asking questions they don’t want the answers to.”  
  
“Questions about Iwaizumi.”  
  
Tooru shoves another handful of wildflowers into the bag along with the stems, roots, and dirt. He’ll sort it out later, pluck each of those petals off so the result will be neat and effective, his message clear as day to anyone there to see it. Two handfuls of pink flower petals to make his point.  
  
“Questions about lots of things.”  
  
The quiet revelation still burns in Tooru’s throat. He wants to _fight,_ wants to smash something to pieces and confess this wriggling thing in his chest to someone who will understand—but the risk that Makki won’t is too great. Instead, Tooru crawls around the park and then the Nittaidai campus collecting flower petals, dodging Makki’s questions while welcoming the occasional enabling feedback.  
  
In a way, this is poetic—a physical manifestation of the knot in his chest.  
  
Tooru has always been a liar; he always will be one, too. It’s one of those nasty things that he doesn’t particularly like about himself but it’s so ingrained, so constant, that he’s learned to accept it for what it is. He lies. It’s just what he does. People either learn to deal with it or they leave.  
  
Except it’s different now, that dishonest part of him has been somewhat pacified in recent months. Now he leaves his shoes at the door next to another pair and shares household chores instead of being completely reliant or dependent in turns. Someone is waiting for him at home, and Tooru feels protective of this new normal his life has fallen into. He doesn’t want it sullied with lies and half-truths because it’s not just his, it’s Hajime’s, too—and Hajime deserves better.  
  
Reckless resolve carries Tooru through his afternoon of classes and practice. When Hajime heads off on his own to go study, Tooru finally sends a message back to Miho and makes his preparations.  
  
What of it, he wants to ask. He wants to _scream_ it. _What of it?!_  
  
The anticipation is fierce as Tooru waits for Hajime and Miho to gather outside the Lab building. He forces away his jitters, makes sure he’s nice and loose. There is no room for doubt. Tooru can’t back out now, he’s committed. This is no different than going all-in on a serve. Sure, it might backfire, but even if it makes the wrong point the point will still be made.  
  
Tooru takes a breath and bellows “Iwa-chan!” across campus, sprints over once he has both Miho and Hajime’s attention, and then flings hundreds of carefully plucked pale-pink flower petals straight in Hajime’s face. The petals flutter through the air—little specks in the greater whole of Tooru’s declaration—the perfect way to phrase the question.  
  
_What of it?_  
  
It’s clockwork. Tooru’s not even watching when Miho walks away.  
  
This isn’t the first time, or even the second or third, but it _is_ the first time since Tooru put a name on it. This seething, possessive jealousy is new and Tooru can’t figure out what to do with the writhing mass in his chest that refuses to behave and do what it’s told. It burns him up like a compulsion, takes him out of his body and has him spitting acid, burning bridges, and spewing slander and bullshit everywhere he can reach just to be _sure_ no one will be able to tell certain facts from fiction.  
  
Tooru has always been a liar.  
  
He lies about his parents. Lied about them when he was a kid, even after Auntie, his teachers, and every coach he ever had caught him out, and he does it now, too.  
  
He lies to the girls who are interested in him, from beginning to end.  
  
He lies to Hajime no less than eighteen hours of every day and he lies to himself for twenty-four.

* * *

  
02-Aug-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_Congratulations on completing your first term!_  
_Love,  
Auntie_

* * *

_  
_ On the Friday of finals week, Kuroo stands outside the building Tooru’s coming out of, both hands behind his back, grinning something dark, sinister, and thrilling. Tooru is instantly suspicious in the best sort of way. Shenanigans? His life has been woefully devoid of nonsense since moving to Tokyo. He hops down the last handful of stairs instead of taking them one at a time.  
  
Kuroo presents a small box wrapped in shimmering, fuchsia paper with bananas on it. “I have a gift for you.”  
  
“Love the paper, it’s so you.” Tooru impatiently tears at the seam. He almost hopes it will explode into a cloud of confetti or something. Instead, he uncovers a shiny blue box with a picture of a calendar on the top and ‘ _Word of the Day_ ’ scrawled across it in loopy script.  
  
Oh. This is about Tooru’s abysmal performance during their shiritori game. It’s not his fault he choked. Honestly, what was Tooru supposed to do, Kuroo wouldn’t stop saying words ending in _shi_. It was beyond infuriating, why did Tooru never think of doing that?  
  
“Since you struggle so much, you know,” Kuroo says, failing terribly at holding back his laughter. “Now you won’t have to lean on Shiratorizawa in a pinch.”  
  
“Aw, thanks. Now I really will have to find you those nose hair trimmers.”  
  
The gift is meant to poke fun. Tooru knows it and Kuroo knows it, and neither of them can be bothered to pretend it’s anything else. It’s a bit of snark—a way to start establishing where each of their respective boundaries lay.  
  
The calendar isn’t really a calendar. It’s Kuroo saying, ‘ _Hey, I_ _’m going to mock the hell out of you if we stay friends—you cool with that?’_  
  
Tooru being good-natured and ribbing back means, ‘ _Sure, but remember that turnabout is fair play._ _’_  
  
“I was going to get you the Junior Edition, but I figured what the hell, Oikawa’s a smart guy, he just needs to apply himself. He can handle the grown-up calendar.” Kuroo gives him a proud nod with a smirk and thumbs-up. “Anyway, I have to get to my last exam—you done for the day?”  
  
Tooru nods. “Good luck, Kuro-chan.”  
  
Kuroo heads into the building; Tooru makes his way home and tears all the previous days off the calendar before sticking it to the front of the fridge. He takes some time to shuffle through eight month’s worth of loose pages to see if anything catches his eye. There’s no rhyme or reason to his searching, he’s just scanning, checking specific dates for fun.  
  
_‘Averse’_ it says, on July 20th. Then, further down, underneath _‘Having a strong feeling of opposition, antipathy, repugnance, etc.’_ it has the related ‘ _risk-averse_ _’_ in tiny, nearly illegible font along with four other related terms like _‘reluctant’_ and ‘ _disinclined_.’ Well, if that isn’t upsettingly accurate, Tooru doesn’t know what is.  
  
Just for the hell of it, Tooru shuffles through the pages and finds June 10th.  
  
_‘_ _Indomitable_.’  
  
This calendar, Tooru is wholly convinced, is magic.

* * *

  
25-Aug-2013  
_I hope you are enjoying your break and getting lots of time outside in the sun!_  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_

* * *

  
“You ever going to explain what the deal is with you, the girls, and Iwaizumi?” Kuroo asks on a too-hot Sunday after Hajime has abandoned them to study with Daichi despite being at least a month ahead in every single one of his classes.  
  
Tooru’s decided not to mention it for now, but someday when Hajime’s angst over not having enough to occupy his time is a little less raw, Tooru’s going to tease him for _weeks_. It will involve some sort of cake, he thinks, and those streamers that make the annoying honking noise.  
  
“Iwa has nothing to do with girls, he can barely talk to them in the first place.” Tooru almost tacks the ‘chan’ on the end like he usually does, but ever since Kuroo had the nerve to try and—as he put it—‘join in on the fun’, Tooru’s been passive-aggressively referring to Hajime as Iwa around him. Sure, he’d also been overdramatic and yelled at Kuroo for around ten minutes, but he wants to be _extra_ sure the message gets across. Kuroo gives him a bitchy sort of look every time, so Tooru figures he’s been wildly successful so far.  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
Tooru continues his hunt across the vastness of the internet for a giant Godzilla plushie and considers his answer. The new, complicated feeling he’s internalized fights for space, bangs against his ribs. He scrolls through the storefront of some toy store overseas. Kuroo won’t get it any more than Makki would, and it’s not worth the risk that he’ll accidentally give something away to Hajime. “Not much to explain. I have this raw, animal magnetism, you know.”  
  
“Look, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I’m just saying I’ll listen, and talking about it might help.”  
  
_Mhmm_. “We can talk. Just keep in mind that even if Dai-chan and Iwa don’t always know what they know, _I_ certainly can put together enough of the pieces to figure out that you’ve been flirting with that blond, nightmare blocker from Karasuno. So, maybe let’s talk about _that_ , first.”  
  
Kuroo goes quiet. When Tooru looks up, he’s staring with his mouth open. He swallows and presses his lips together before he says, “We’re not flirting, for the record, but how the _hell_ do you know about that?”  
  
Tooru might not get the whole thing right in one go, but he’s sure the gist will come across. “Iwa told me that Dai-chan told him that Chibi-chan’s worried that Freckles might stage an intervention for Blocker-kun because Blocker-kun’s been acting crazy weird ever since he started texting someone he met at some training camp in Tokyo that Karasuno went to last fall and it’s starting to border dangerously on pining. Figured it had to be you, Blocker-kun used some of your moves the last time I played him.”  
  
Kuroo takes a moment to absorb it. His voice is strangled. “Tsukki is _pining_ for me?”  
  
“That’s what they say. You don’t seem as happy about it as I expected.”  
  
Kuroo has masterful control over his expression, but Tooru sees the cracks forming. “It’s not like that.”  
  
“My sympathies, want to _talk_ about it?” Tooru asks, snarky as he can get, not caring that he sounds like an asshole.  
  
Before he forgets, he opens the spreadsheet Hajime keeps and keys in a seventy-eight for _‘feet_ _._ _’_ Would have been higher, except he has that stupid hairy knuckle on his big toes. Three weeks ago, Tooru had insisted that they weren’t allowed to artificially pump their scores with shaving, tweezing, or waxing—Kuroo really does need trimmers for his nose hair—and now he’s paying the price for it.  
  
“Nope.” Kuroo pops the word between his lips and rakes his fingers through his hair.  
  
“Good.” Another boundary has been established. Hajime and Tsukishima won’t be coming up in this context again.  
  
Tooru takes a moment to reply to a message from Yahaba asking how he and Hajime split up the drills they oversaw and then switches over to a different website to search there, too. A promising thumbnail scrolls onto the page. Tooru can’t click fast enough. It’s perfect, the right size and it looks authentic enough. Expensive, but Tooru imagines the look on Hajime’s face and can’t talk himself out of it. This is going to be epic.  
  
“That’s one of the creepier smiles I’ve seen you make.” Kuroo arches an eyebrow and lays back on the floor with one leg crossed over the other, arms pillowing his head.  
  
Tooru turns the laptop around and lifts it up so Kuroo can see. “Just making my darling Iwa’s dreams come true.”  
  
“Nice.” Kuroo laughs. “Too bad it looks like you couldn’t get a mask to stay on, or you could make one of Suga’s face.”  
  
“It’s alright. Godzilla is the important part. He’s going to love this.”  
  
Tooru immediately feels like he’s said too much. He’s given the tangled mass in his chest room to grow, has allowed Kuroo a glimpse of it no matter how brief. More than anything else, Tooru needs to keep in control otherwise this _thing_ will overwhelm him. It takes a viciously firm hand to wrestle it back in line, but he manages. Tooru has experience with these sorts of things.

* * *

  
18-Sep-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_We are thinking of you!_  
_Wishing you all the best today and every day._  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_

* * *

_  
_ The party Kuroo takes him to is something Tooru thought he’d only experience from watching movies. It’s not a location, not a single group of people—it’s a moving, breathing entity that’s taken over three floors of the dorms at Chuo and shows no sign of stopping or slowing down even as it creeps on midnight.  
  
It’s easy to get swept away by the atmosphere of it. The first beer is terrifying but the second is alright. After that, Kuroo starts mixing drinks to share between them and Tooru stops keeping track. He’s surrounded by loud and fun, has a hundred people to talk to and more than a handful he wouldn’t mind sidling up to with leading touches and seductive grins. A flirty smile finds a home on his lips for the night.  
  
Kuroo’s friends are easy to get along with. Tooru feels like they’re his friends, too, for how much he knows about them from watching so many of their games. All of the important parts are known: general temperaments; frustration thresholds; a handful of tells each.  
  
Tooru knows that when Bokuto’s getting wound up first he’ll flex his jaw, then crack his neck, and only after is he at risk of deflating. This quiet, stand-offish guy that was at one of the Kansai schools three years back is cunning and observant, will seize any opportunity Tooru gives him. There’s a libero courtesy of Kamomedai two years ago that will doggedly pursue an interest to the point of exhaustion. Akaashi is more difficult to pinpoint; Oikawa has always had a harder time reading fellow setters when he’s not across the court from them.  
  
These are the things that matter when getting to know new people.  
  
They’ve migrated up to the top floor: Tooru, Kuroo, Bokuto, and Akaashi. Bokuto’s dorm room is right on top of heavy thumps of music traveling through the floor and up the walls covered in an impressive array of posters. Long strings of the little, colorless Christmas lights that get wrapped around every tree in sight come November line the tops of all four walls. There’s a handful of people dancing in the hallways but most of them travel through open doors and socialize with whoever they come across in loud, energetic bursts.  
  
Bokuto and Tooru lean against the wall running parallel to the windows and door as they chat. Akaashi sits in the middle of Bokuto’s bed. Pacing an erratic path around the whole room is Kuroo. He disappears now and again and comes back with snacks or more drinks, or another stranger to introduce to Tooru.  
  
The conversation starts easily enough with volleyball, about plays they like and personal strengths and weaknesses. Bokuto brags about his cut shot, and after some prodding Akaashi reviews a particularly well-timed and nasty setter dump he scored in last year’s Spring Nationals. It’s natural for the conversation to snag on other teammates and from there it’s only reasonable that Tooru’s focus gets swept away by Hajime.  
  
“He’s amazing,” Tooru breathes, leaning his shoulder against the wall, facing Bokuto and Akaashi as he talks. He started out raving about Hajime’s spiking but there’s so much other stuff to cover, he doesn’t know how he’ll get to it all. “My favorite person. He’s so kind, too, most people don’t know that about him. If he found, like, a little bird or something on the sidewalk he’d totally pick it up and take care of it… I’d have to be all, ‘Iwa-chan, what’s up with the bird?’ and he’d say something like, ‘What was I supposed to do, dipshit, leave it there alone?’ and then we’d have a pet… I don’t know, parakeet or something.”  
  
Bokuto stares at something over Tooru’s shoulder with a questioning expression. Tooru cranes his neck to catch Kuroo standing behind him shaking his head, his palm making a cutting motion in the space between them, mouth drawn into the shape of an ‘o’. Kuroo’s face is curiously lacking in bitchiness—crap, Tooru screwed up, didn’t he? Oh well.  
  
“What?” Tooru asks.  
  
Kuroo rolls his eyes. “Nothing. Just wondering why the hell it’d be a parakeet.”  
  
Tooru’s latest drink is some weird, sweet, fizzy cocktail that Kuroo insisted he’d love. Kuroo is correct. This— _this_ is why Tooru makes friends with creative and intuitive people. He takes a sip and narrows his eyes at Kuroo. “What’s wrong with parakeets?”  
  
“So much,” Kuroo says. “Though it’s fitting you’d choose something that’s a menace.”  
  
Well, how is Tooru supposed to know what birds are like, he’s studying _sports._ He waves a dismissive hand at Kuroo’s face. “Who cares. The point is that Iwa is amazing.”  
  
“Sure, man.” Kuroo laughs. He cracks his neck and moves closer to the middle of the room so that Tooru’s not turning his head every which way to keep his eyes on everyone. “He’s sweet and amazing, highly observant, has appropriate reactions to his emotions, and loves birds. Sounds like Iwaizumi to me.”  
  
“I’m so glad you get it.” Tooru misses his straw but he gets it on the second try. Stupid straw.  
  
Another of Bokuto’s teammates joins them—this one introduced as a middle blocker that Oikawa recognizes from his collection of Inarizaki footage. The dude is _huge_. Far, far too large for Tooru’s poor alcohol-soaked brain to deal with. What’s he even supposed to call him? He already has a Blocker-kun.  
  
With a purposefully annoying level of cheer, Tooru says, “You are going to be such a raging pain in the ass, Goliath-chan.”  
  
Goliath-chan stares.  
  
Kuroo and Bokuto laugh like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Even Akaashi lets out a chuckle and says, “Yeah, but it’s more fun getting one over on the tall ones, right?”  
  
Now that is something Tooru can wholeheartedly agree with. There are a few plays that would be _immensely_ satisfying to pull off against someone as large as this giant. Tooru’s running through them before he realizes what he’s doing.  
  
“I think I would do dumps. Over and over. Right in front of you,” Tooru tells Goliath-chan. “Rile you up like crazy.”  
  
“We tooled him,” Akaashi says. “Nothing gets under someone’s skin like constantly being used for wipes, eh, Omimi-san?”  
  
Goliath-chan finally speaks. “That game was bullshit and you know it.”  
  
Bokuto snorts. “That game was amazing, and it is a _crime_ , I tell you, that it wasn’t official. I’d kill someone to get a tape of that match.”  
  
“I agree with Bokuto, but only because it didn’t happen to me,” Kuroo says. “Anyone tried that shit during my game, they’d get strung up in the net.”  
  
“I am so curious right now,” Tooru says with his straw clenched firmly between his teeth so it can’t get away again. He glances up at Kuroo—the most likely person to tell the full story—the straw flicks little droplets of Tooru’s sugary cocktail in his face as it comes loose from the confines of the cup.  
  
_There_ _’s_ the bitchy look.  
  
In the end, it is Bokuto who explains. Tooru barely notices when Kuroo and Akaashi leave with the tall guy half-way through. Bokuto huffs a laugh and flails his arms in imitation of Goliath-chan after Fukurodani wiped the ball off him for an entire set. The story is greatly embellished—there’s no way they scored fifteen points like that—but right now Tooru doesn’t care about nonsense like what _actually_ happened.  
  
It’s just the two of them, leaning against the wall of Bokuto’s dorm room, heads tilted toward one another. The pieces of ice left in Tooru’s cup make scraping noises against the sides as he swishes them around between sips. It should feel awkward, Tooru thinks, but this is the advantage to outgoing people, like Bokuto.  
  
There is a thick pause as the music changes from one track to the next—this song as loud and percussive as the last.  
  
“This straw is such a jerk,” Tooru says cheerfully, not for any reason in particular, he just wants to talk.  
  
Bokuto shoots a wary glance at Tooru’s drink. “I don’t know why Kuroo made that thing. Looks nasty. Too much sugar.”  
  
Tooru finishes his drink off with a slurp then plucks the straw out and flings it in the direction of the wastebasket by Bokuto’s desk. “How’s Chuo treating you, Bokuto Koutarou: Fukurodani ace, former captain, current anglo— anagol— Hell, I don’t know the word, just make one up and we’ll pretend it means I’m comparing you to Iwa-chan right now.”  
  
“I’m a what now?”  
  
“A kind of clock, I think. Whatever, never mind. You and Akaashi seemed really tight on the court, you have to play without him now, right?”  
  
“Man, it’s like missing a _limb_. It’s nuts. Have to relearn to do all this shit on my own and knock off the garbage I could get away with before.” Bokuto sets his empty bottle down and stretches his arms over his head before letting them drop back to his sides. “Wish we had a deal like you and Iwaizumi. Kuroo says he’s hard to block so he’s gotta be good.”  
  
“It’s not like we ever get to play together, though.” It’s such _crap_. Tooru wants to sulk about it twenty-four hours a day, every day, forever. “He’s taking it kind of bad. Thinks I don’t notice, but man, is he _bummed_. Puts all that energy into studying like he’s not already over-prepared for the entire rest of the year. Doesn’t know what to do with himself when every day’s not packed back-to-back.”  
  
Bokuto scrunches up his nose and purses his lips. He glares at a black and white movie poster hung on the far wall that Tooru doesn’t recognize. “I’d take that pretty bad, too, I think. I’m working on it, though. Trying to chill out and be more level overall. That counts for something, right?”  
  
“Totally does. I’m still gonna wipe the floor with you, though. Maybe not this year, but next. The year after that is going to be a _massacre_.” Tooru can’t wait. He has _plans_.  
  
“We’ll see. I’ll have Akaashi back next year. He pretends he hasn’t decided yet, but he can’t fool me. He’s just saying that to screw with Kuroo. S’why he’s the best.”  
  
“Agreed, screwing with Kuro-chan is a great time.”  
  
Tooru turns so his hip rests against the wall rather than his back and tilts his head to rest on it, too. The curl of his lips feels relaxed, effortless. Bokuto shifts, too, with a lazy grin of his own. It is nearly instinct, the way Tooru glances at Bokuto’s lips then stares up through his lashes, the way his little grin falls into a smirk.  
  
Bokuto leans closer. It’s a nice feeling, this sudden bundle of nerves while Tooru tries to figure out how much of it he’s making up in his head, and how much is a real, sudden connection with someone who seems to _get_ him. A buzz vibrates over Tooru’s skin. It’d be so nice, to get lost in this place where the too-full space around his heart is numb.  
  
The beat of some dance song travels through the floor. Tooru’s chest vibrates, his fingers twitch, and Bokuto is smiling, leaning closer, slipping the fingers of one hand over the skin of Tooru’s side and…  
  
Tooru lets it wash over him. The music, Bokuto, lips and tongue—those long arms snaking around his waist and his own clinging to fabric and muscle. Bokuto kisses like he plays, one hundred percent in the game for better and worse, through thick and thin, no matter the tides. A hand creeps up the side of Tooru’s shirt, calloused hands rough against his skin.  
  
It’s right and wrong. Satisfaction and longing braided into a noose around Tooru’s neck, threatening to choke him.  
  
They stumble; Tooru presses Bokuto against the wall and that’s wrong, too, because Hajime wouldn’t like to be caged in like this. He’d want space, need to be the one doing the crowding. A desperate fantasy comes with labored breath and an incredible pressure in his abdomen: back against the wall, closed in on all sides, rough hands sliding so carefully up Tooru’s ribs and pressing over the vines embracing his heart.  
  
Tooru wants it so badly, his soul aches. He wants to be manhandled. Wants that desperate, clawing certainty that for Tooru the answer is ‘yes,’ even though for everyone else it’s ‘no.’ He wants Hajime to _come after_ him, to _want_ him, to _need_ him.  
  
The song bleeds into another and suddenly this whole thing is dirty and wrong. The heat and bass, the fingers tracing his ribs and the hand on the back of his neck, the body pressed close. None of it is right, because none of it is Hajime.  
  
“Are you crying?” Bokuto asks, drunk and too loud. “I’m sorry! I thought you were into it!”  
  
Tooru should be mortified except he can’t get there. What is he _doing?_ He stumbles away until his back hits the poster across the room. His hands come up to cover his face; the tips of his fingers are wet. His vision swims. Oh, god, he _is_ crying.  
  
“D’you want me to get Kuroo? I mean, he’s ass at this kind of stuff, but at least you’re friends with him.”  
  
It’s meant to be a laugh that comes out, but it gets caught up in the middle of a sob and sounds more pathetic for it. Tooru rubs the collar of his shirt over his face from his eyes to his chin and lurches toward the door. “No. No Kuroo. I just… I have to go.”  
  
Tooru runs to the communal bathroom down the hall. His back hits the wall, he slides into a crouch and tries to catch his breath. What is he doing? _What was he thinking?!_ The quieted thing wrapped around his heart comes roaring back to life—it throbs, reaches tendrils down to his stomach and whips up a sour churning that burns his throat. He leans his head against the wall and counts backward from sixty: one full minute of calm to get himself back under control. When that doesn’t do enough, Tooru takes another minute. Then, a third.  
_  
_ The door swings open. Akaashi pokes his head in just as Tooru finishes his fifth repetition. He steps inside when he catches sight of Tooru, still huddled down with his arms crossed over his knees. “Hey. Bokuto sent me to check on you.”  
  
How blunt. Tooru can appreciate that. He forces himself to stand and goes to the sink with as much of an impression of being casual as he can manage, cups his hands under the faucet and scrubs what evidence he can off his face. The water feels nice, helps to cool him off and slow this appalling turn of events. Once he’s sure he can talk without his voice wavering he says, “I’m fine.”  
  
“You’re not,” Akaashi says. He doesn’t elaborate.  
  
“I am. I have to be.” Tooru stares at Akaashi in the mirror until he has to look away. He can’t talk about it. Can’t let it out. Tooru grips the edge of the sink and closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at himself anymore, either. He can’t—he can’t, he can’t, _he can_ _’t_. It’s breaking him apart from the inside out as it grows, wild and out of control.  
  
“Okay, come on.” Akaashi comes closer and pulls at Tooru’s sleeve with his fingertips. “Let’s get out of the bathroom at least. Find you a nice, dark corner to be gloomy in.”  
  
A dark corner to be gloomy in sounds _amazing_.  
  
“Come on,” Akaashi says again.  
  
Tooru allows himself to be led away, back to Bokuto’s room, blissfully empty this time. Akaashi lets go once they’re inside and closes the door behind them before sitting sideways across Bokuto’s bed. His legs hang off the side, back against the wall. After a moment, Tooru sits on the floor near the other end of the bed.  
  
“I’m not usually like this.”  
  
“I get it, don’t worry. It’s easy to get caught up and lose sight of the forest for the trees sometimes.”  
  
“What?” Tooru has no idea what Akaashi is talking about. What about trees?  
  
Akaashi shrugs. “Nothing. We can stay as long as you want, by the way, don’t stress over it.”  
  
Tooru doesn’t cry often, but sometimes his emotions well up within him so fast that he can’t hope to keep them contained. He draws his legs up, crosses his arms over his knees, and buries his head between them where it’s easier to breathe. The rush is already overtaking him again—face hot, nose stuffy. He goes back to counting out the seconds, allows himself one hundred and fifty of them to cry and be miserable before shoving it all back down and focusing on his breathing until it isn’t so difficult anymore.  
  
Akaashi sits nearby, silent.  
  
“I think I shouldn’t have come here.” Tooru turns so he’s sitting in the corner made between the bed and the wall. He watches Akaashi from the corner of his eye. “Sorry for ruining your night.”  
  
“It’s fine. I come out because Bokuto wants me to, and it’s nice to see him, but I’m not really into the party thing. Some quiet away from everything is nice. So, thanks for the excuse to kick him out of his room and have a few minutes of peace.”  
  
“Okay,” Tooru says. He chooses to take Akaashi at face-value, what else is he supposed to do?  
  
Tooru’s arms tighten around his knees; his legs press against his chest, restrictive and solid. The silence is companionable and calm. Akaashi’s reading something on his phone, and after a moment Tooru grabs his out of his pocket as well. His head feels fuzzy as he flicks through his pictures and sends text messages he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t figure out how to care about that. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, out of sight, out of mind, into the ether.  
  
“Even texting is so dramatic sometimes,” Tooru mutters.  
  
Oops, there goes another one.  
  
“I feel like I should be stopping you,” Akaashi says without bothering to look up and making no move to do so.  
  
“Probably.”  
  
“You want me to?”  
  
Tooru tries to make an honest effort to think about it and immediately gives up. “Nah.”  
  
_‘Kuro-chan, mistakes have been made. Are being made. So many mistakes.’_ Everything is misspelled. He hits send anyway.  
  
Right outside the door a barking laugh echoes in the hallway.  
  
_‘Does this mean you’re done_ _freaking out and we can come back in? Don_ _’t get me wrong, kissing Bokuto made me cry, too, but it’s one of those things you just have to get over. There’s a support group and everything.’_  
  
Tooru snorts a laugh and leans his head back against the wall. It’s less overwhelming if Kuroo’s been here, too. “Okay, I’m good now.”  
  
“You sure?” Akaashi asks.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Akaashi gets up and opens the door. Kuroo stumbles straight through and barely stops himself from falling over with wild, cartwheeling arms and an undignified shriek.  
  
“Why are you like this?” Akaashi asks with his forefinger pressed to his lips and a mad chuckle racing through him.  
  
Kuroo grumbles. “You do that on purpose. You’re just a jerk that likes to watch me suffer.”  
  
“I think only about half of that is true.”  
  
“The part where you’re a jerk?”  
  
“That it’s fun to watch you suffer.”  
  
Akaashi rolls his eyes and this time he sits on the floor with Tooru, close enough to provide a stable reassurance. There’s no reason for Akaashi to do it, probably a dozen reasons for him not to. A swell of appreciation battles it out with a surge of self-pity. Tooru must look pathetic.  
  
Bokuto, thankfully, stays on the other side of the room. He offers Tooru a small, tentative smile that Tooru has no problem shooting right back, amplified up to eleven. There is no elephant in the room, it’s certainly not magenta, and everything is _fine_.  
  
The others chat for a bit, and Tooru lets himself zone out and press more inadvisable icons on his phone. He doesn’t pay much attention to the first yawn that explodes from his mouth. After the second, Kuroo kicks his leg to get his attention.  
  
“Should we call it a night?” Kuroo asks.  
  
“Yeah, probably.” Tooru doesn’t have it in him to do the polite, demurring thing where he pretends they can stay, or hems and haws to see what Kuroo wants. When he stands upright, the floor tilts at an entirely unreasonable angle. Kuroo snags his arm on reflex. He feels nice: warm and solid. With a groan, Tooru wraps his arms around Kuroo’s middle, burrows into his side, and decides he’s never letting go.  
  
“I’m gonna invite you to stay over,” Bokuto says, entirely too seriously, “but in the way where you sleep on the floor with all your clothes on.”  
  
“Nah, man.” Kuroo slings an arm around Tooru’s shoulders. “We’re gonna cab it back to my place. Last time I slept on the floor with all my clothes on I still wound up being the little spoon.”  
  
“I said I was sorry about that,” Bokuto says with the frustration of someone who has reiterated this point too many times.  
  
“Yeah,” Kuroo says. “But you were _lying_.”  
  
Bokuto screws up his face. “You can’t know for sure.”  
  
“You apologized with your hands in my pockets.”  
  
“ _Platonically,_ ” Bokuto insists. He glances up and narrows his eyes. “Right? Is that a word?”  
  
Akaashi snickers. “I don’t think you do _anything_ platonically.”  
  
“Whatever.”  
  
“You also said the exact words, ‘I’m not even sorry.’ Anyway, we’re leaving.” Kuroo laughs before drawing Tooru closer and leading him out of the dorms. Bokuto’s outraged sputtering and Akaashi’s restrained chuckles float in the air behind them.  
  
Tooru remembers the cab and the general surprise of realizing it’s past three in the morning when they stumble into Kuroo’s dorm room at Nittaidai. He remembers staring at his phone and carefully picking out faces for everything he felt during the course of the night then swiping his thumb over the characters for Hajime’s name over and over.

* * *

  
19-Sep-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_Have a pickled plum and lots of water._  
_Call when you_ _’re feeling better._  
_Love,  
Auntie_

* * *

_  
_ When Tooru opens his eyes, he wishes for death. The sudden onset of sunlight destroys his equilibrium. Tooru’s relieved to find his phone in his pocket, annoyed when he sees it’s already eleven in the morning, then pulls his shirt up and around the sides of his head when he opens his most recent notification and sees how badly he’d been blowing Hajime up all night. He turns the phone off rather than deal with anything on it.  
  
The pile of blankets and clothes to his side shifts. Kuroo groans. “There’s a bottle of Tylenol somewhere that way.” Kuroo gestures, too low, and smacks Tooru in the face. “Take a couple, there’s water, too. Then hand ‘em over.”  
  
“Oh my god, stop talking.” Tooru can’t deal with all this _noise_ on top of the awful congestion in his nose when he tries to breathe. He lashes back with a kick and misses, then loses the brief scuffle that ensues because any sort of turning motion at all makes him feel like he needs to find a word stronger than _regret_.  
  
Tooru finds the pills and water bottles after a couple of tries, and only sort of wants to vomit all over the place when he pulls himself upright and swallows down somewhere between two and five Tylenol. He tosses the bottles at Kuroo without paying attention. The _oof_ Kuroo makes when the water bottle lands doesn’t help as much as Tooru was hoping it would.  
  
“ _Go back to sleep,_ ” Kuroo whines.  
  
Tooru buries himself in sheets, blankets, and curls up into Kuroo’s side on the floor, and lets himself fall asleep.  
  
The second time Tooru wakes up is every bit as bad as the first. Tylenol sucks, Tooru needs morphine. Death still sounds pretty nice, too.  
  
“Please, one swift blow to the head.” Tooru doesn’t mind begging for it. There’s no way he’s going to survive anyway. He’s going to die in Kuroo’s dorm room with no witnesses to take his side and tell the story of what really happened. Actually, that part might be okay—the whole night is foggy and cocooned in vague senses of shame and embarrassment, and Tooru is sure he doesn’t want to think about it _ever again_.  
  
“Okay, but maybe let’s try some other things first,” Kuroo says. He sounds almost as terrible as Tooru does, but that’s impossible because Kuroo is somehow both upright and moving.  
  
The shower Kuroo insists on helps some. The banana and second bottle of water help, too, and soon enough it’s twelve-thirty and Tooru only sort of wants to die every time he moves. Since he can’t remember a time _before_ moving was so devastating, he figures he’ll count it as a win.  
  
Kuroo lies on his back on the floor, staring at the ceiling, spouting regrets every few minutes. Tooru’s sitting against the wall with Kuroo’s blanket from his bed wrapped around his torso and legs, arms poking out the top. He finally works up the courage to turn his phone back on and scrolls through the messages. His heart stops. “Oh my god.”  
  
Kuroo makes a humming noise that may or may not be intended as a question.  
  
“No.” This is it. His life is over. Tooru needs to crawl in a hole and die _, right now_.  
  
There’s a decade’s worth of blackmail material. It’s been sent far and wide, strewn throughout every one of his social circles from Yahaba to Hanamaki to a girl he met in one of his spring classes but never asked out. Hajime took the brunt of it—Tooru can deal with that—but the _worst_ part is six messages full of the most disgusting pining Tooru can imagine sent at three in the morning to Auntie. Her message this morning about plums and water makes a painful amount of sense with this new information.  
  
Kuroo props himself up on his elbows and stares. After a moment he sits up and holds out his hand. Any other day Tooru would give Kuroo hell for even thinking he’d be willing to share the source of his humiliation, but really, there’s no sinking further than this. It’s not really a secret—Kuroo’s already made it clear that he knows Tooru feels something far past friendship for Hajime.  
  
Tooru hands over the phone. After a glance, Kuroo hands it back. His shoulders shake.  
  
“Were you trying to indirectly flirt with Iwaizumi _through his mother?_ ” Kuroo tries to stand but falls flat on his ass with a groan.  
  
“You deserved that,” Tooru says, just in case Kuroo doesn’t realize.  
  
“This is what you get for hiding out with Akaashi. Bokuto would have at least taken your phone away.”  
  
Tooru’s entire face goes hot. Jesus, he’d forgotten about Bokuto.  
  
Kuroo lets out an obnoxious cackle. “Don’t worry, man, we’ve all been there.”  
  
“You can never tell anyone. About any of it. Not about Iwa’s mom, not about Bokuto.” Auntie will keep it secret. She’ll make him explain himself, sure, but she’s not going to _tell_ anyone. Kuroo, on the other hand—it is impossible to impress the severity of the matter. Tooru will have to beg. “Please. You have to keep this quiet.”  
  
“Dude—”  
  
“Just don’t tell Iwa-chan, if he finds out he’s going to see _everything_ and he can’t know about this, he’s going to realize—”  
  
“ _Oikawa_.”  
  
Tooru is panicking. He realizes it distantly as his chest heaves and tunnel-vision closes in along with every wall in Kuroo’s dorm room. He feels his volume rise and can’t do anything to stop anger from building up. He snarls. “If you tell _anyone_ , I’ll—”  
  
_“Stop_ _._ _”_ Kuroo grabs Tooru by the arm and shakes. Something unpleasant rattles in Tooru’s head with the jerking motion. “We are _friends_. No one’s going to hear any of this from me.”  
  
Tooru thinks that even if he didn’t have a head full of chalk, a throat made of sandpaper, and about a hundred much more pressing concerns, he’d have a tough time accepting Kuroo’s words. It’s not his fault, he’s used to friends like Makki and Mattsun. Sure, they’d keep quiet, too, but they’d be _loud_ about it.  
  
“You can try to threaten me into silence if it’ll make you feel better.” Kuroo shrugs like he doesn’t care either way.  
  
“How do I fix this?” Tooru asks. It’s an awkward question, but his head hurts and he feels like he gained fifteen pounds overnight—he can’t be bothered to try and censor himself. He wants to be at home, in bed, under every single blanket within reach.  
  
Kuroo levels a speculative gaze at Tooru. “The thing with Iwaizumi’s mom?”  
  
Tooru nods.  
  
“Honestly? I have a lot of trouble believing she didn’t already know. Maybe you don’t have to fix it as much as you think.” The look Kuroo gives him is on the odd side—a little kinder and more sympathetic than Tooru is used to from him.  
  
_This._ This is why Tooru likes making friends with deceptive, intuitive people. It’s less lonely, if only for the time it takes to haul himself back home.

* * *

**  
** 22-Sep-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_Wishing you a joyful last few days of summer break!_  
_Let_ _’s talk when you have time._  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_

* * *

**  
** When Tooru was eight years old, his parents sat him down on a random, unsuspecting Wednesday after dinner and upended his entire life in six minutes.  
  
They told him Tooru’s father had been promoted, that they were moving in a couple of weeks, and he’d have to say goodbye to his school, his friends, everything he knew. Next, they said Daisuke’s wife was going to have a baby—Tooru would be an uncle—and he would have to set a good example because he wasn’t the youngest anymore. Then, finally, they told him he had to understand, that being upset wouldn’t change anything, that he may as well stop crying and acting like life as he knew it was over.  
  
At the time, Tooru had felt it was a pretty typical Wednesday evening, but that was before he met the Iwaizumis.  
  
“I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad,” Daisuke says, his voice tired and restrained, a slight echo coming over the line. “I’m only bringing it up because I have to tell Takeru today, and I don’t want you hearing it from him.”  
  
“They said they would find a replacement, they told me not to worry about it.” Tooru seethes, fist clenched at his side as he glares at his bedroom walls. If he’d known this would happen, he’d have made arrangements. Someone at Seijou would have stepped up in a heartbeat.  
  
Out in the living room, Hajime sets his computer aside and gives Tooru an uneasy glance.  
  
“I already told you: they tried. Really, how many people do you think are willing to run a kid’s volleyball club? There’s a reason you were the one doing it in the first place.”  
  
Tooru shouldn’t let Daisuke’s tone get to him. This conversation is already going in circles, and Daisuke doesn’t mean to be so terse. It’s just that, even now, they don’t have the greatest relationship or know each other very well. Daisuke was moving out when Tooru was still in diapers and never lived close enough for frequent visits until Takeru was on the way. It used to eat Tooru up, wondering what life would have been like if Daisuke was just a few years younger or stayed close enough to home for Tooru to grow up with him. These days, now that Tooru’s out of the house, too—and out of Miyagi to boot—it’s not as sour. The distance helps. So does the ability to control when he chooses to communicate with his family, and who he talks to.  
  
“I’ll figure something out,” Tooru says. “Don’t tell him yet, give me a few days.”  
  
“Tooru—you don’t have to. Takeru’ll be alright. There are lots of other clubs, he’ll get over it.”  
  
Tooru very nearly snarls. Like _hell_ Takeru will be told to get over it, to deal, to buck up and understand when Tooru can do something about it. “I will take care of it.”  
  
“—Alright. Thank you, Tooru.”  
  
The unexpected gratitude throws Tooru for a loop. He stammers, “You’re welcome.”  
  
“What’s wrong?” Hajime asks the moment Tooru disconnects the call.  
  
“Takeru’s kiddie club can’t keep a coach.” Tooru throws his hands in the air, fed up and still angry over the whole thing. “Apparently they overestimated themselves when they said they’d get someone, no problem, while shoving me out the door.”  
  
“It wasn’t like that and you know it.”  
  
The jab is mostly fair, so Tooru lets it go. He paces short, jerky laps around the bedroom and scrolls to the bottom of his contacts list.  
  
Three rings sound over the line before Yahaba answers, sounding out of breath.  
  
“Oikawa-san!”  
  
There’s a pleasant exchange of niceties, as is usual in their calls, but it’s not long after that Tooru relays the situation to Yahaba. Hajime shakes his head and mouths the words ‘calm down’ twice like Tooru isn’t using the proper amount of outrage or didn’t notice the suggestion the first time.  
  
“Coach Irihata arranged it with the school so it’d look good for college. I’m not sure what he said, though. You should talk to him before seeing if there are any volunteers. Kindaichi would be a good choice, he can get some practice for next year.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“And don’t worry about it right this minute, either; focus on Qualifiers, this can come after. The kids getting a break isn’t a big deal, I just don’t want it taken away from them entirely.”  
  
“Yeah, of course. Don’t worry, we’ll make it work. If worst comes to worst we can just take turns, it’s only once a week.”  
  
“I really appreciate it. I owe you for this.”  
  
“What? No, of course you don’t. It sounds fun, I bet everyone will be excited to help out.”  
  
Tooru thinks Yahaba hasn’t quite wrapped his head around what teaching ten-year-olds team sports entails, but that’s alright. This can be a learning experience for Yahaba, too.  
  
“How’s everything going with the team? Only a month to go, you guys ready?” Tooru can practically hear Yahaba’s spine straighten over the phone line.  
  
“We won’t let you down!”  
  
That’s a little too knee-jerk of a response for Tooru’s tastes. He appreciates the sentiment, but they need to be working hard for themselves and their personal senses of accomplishment. Making Tooru—or anyone else—proud should be a natural byproduct.  
  
Pointing that out would make Yahaba self-conscious about his leadership, though. Instead, Tooru changes the subject and asks, “What’s your conditioning regimen look like these days?”  
  
In the kitchen, the washing machine chimes the end of the cycle. Tooru snaps his fingers to get Hajime’s attention, then gestures toward the machine. Hajime stares.  
  
“Hang up the clothes to dry,” Tooru whispers, one hand covering the mic. Yahaba is still weighing the pros and cons of switching up the team’s weight training routine this close to the tournament.  
  
A horrified wariness crosses Hajime’s face. “I don’t know how.”  
  
“You need directions to take clothes and hang them on a line?” Tooru asks. Unbelievable.  
  
Hajime scowls and gets up; he walks over to the washing machine and stares at it for a good handful of seconds before experimentally nudging it with his toe.  
  
“Don’t worry, even your caveman brain can figure this one out,” Tooru says. “Open door, clothes in basket, clothes on line. Done.”  
  
With a dirty look, Hajime follows Tooru’s basic instructions. Under his breath, he mutters, “That’s it, the dickhead is learning to use the stove.”  
  
“Only if you want to be set on fire,” Tooru snaps back.  
  
“Is this a bad time?” Yahaba asks.  
  
“No, of course not. It’s just chore day and Iwa-chan is afraid of the laundry.”  
  
Hajime flips the bird and then, for some reason, picks up a dark red shirt that Tooru is pretty sure is one of his, stares at it from three different angles, and puts it back before grabbing a different one.  
  
“I can’t imagine Iwaizumi being afraid of anything,” Yahaba says. “Don’t you guys ever get bored of each other?”  
  
“You have no idea how much entertainment Iwa-chan provides on a daily basis.” Tooru stares, bewildered, as Hajime has the same false-start with the red shirt two more times. Tooru can’t help but ask, “What are you doing?”  
  
Hajime shakes his head and waves away Tooru’s question. Well, that just won’t do. Tooru has a sense for these things; this is going to be good.  
  
“Sorry, hold on just a sec.” Tooru doesn’t bother covering the mic or muting the line this time. If Hajime’s going to be a wreck over something as simple as laundry—and not even anything complicated, this is literally the simplest part of the process—then Yahaba should get to enjoy it, too. “Seriously, what is it?”  
  
“What if it’s inside-out?” Hajime asks.  
  
Tooru loves being right.  
  
“Then you have to tie it in a knot, beat it four times against the balcony railing, and then hang it upside-down.”  
  
Hajime makes a face consisting almost entirely of his eyebrows doing weird, confused dances on his forehead. “Why?”  
  
“Because stupid problems require stupid solutions.”  
  
“Asshole.”  
  
Tooru _refuses_ to acknowledge the way his stomach goes aflutter and his fingertips itch to smooth out that crease between Hajime’s eyebrows. Is he seriously so far gone that run-of-the-mill insults are doing it for him? That wasn’t even a good one.  
  
“If I’m an asshole, I don’t even know what we should call you.”  
  
Hajime rolls his eyes, but he also chuckles and wears a smile that’s fond and familiar. The tendrils crawling around Tooru’s chest squeeze so hard his heart skips a beat.  
  
“Besides,” Tooru says, because he has to say _something_. He has to fill the space and disperse this atmosphere before it becomes too dangerous, “you’d never survive in polite society without me anyway.”  
  
“Oh, _please._ _”_ The words explode between them, like holding them in is painful. Hajime finally relaxes and settles into the easy task instead of blowing it up to be something more complicated.  
  
Tooru turns his attention back to Yahaba.  
  
“Sorry about that, I’m back. Is everyone holding it together okay? They’re going to get real jittery the closer you get to the tournament, you have to keep an eye on that.” Yahaba probably won’t have it as bad without Makki and Mattsun, but Kindaichi and Kunimi have deceptively large amounts of energy. “Give Mad Dog a punching bag to beat up on.”  
  
“I think they’re just nervous,” Yahaba says, sounding like he’s probably the most nervous of everyone. “We didn’t do so hot last time, and this is kind of our last chance to show that we’re still strong. How did you and Iwaizumi make it look so easy?”  
  
“Just focus on doing your best as a team,” Tooru dutifully recites. He couldn’t count all the times he’s heard the same if he tried. If Yahaba’s groan is anything to go by, he finds the advice as frustrating and useless as Tooru does. “Try not to get too wound up. You have to stay calm. If you freak out everyone else will too.”  
  
“Yes, Oikawa-san,” Yahaba says, sounding grumpy and uninspired.  
  
Well, that just won’t do. Tooru takes a moment to organize his thoughts, to phrase something he feels on an instinctual level in a way that Yahaba will understand. “Remember that sometimes you have to tell your hitters ‘no’. They may ask for a lower set or one further from the net, but you’re not always the one who has to adjust. It’s the same thing here. Look at every piece individually before you start putting them together, and don’t let them forget that their talents can still be honed.”  
  
Across the room, Hajime looks up from where he’s hanging the last of their laundry and gives Tooru an approving nod. Tooru’s going to melt any second. He turns on his heel and resumes his pacing.  
  
“I won’t.” Yahaba sounds much more determined this time. That’s better.  
  
“Keep me updated.” Tooru ends almost every conversation they have with a similar request. It’s not much, just a small invitation to stay in touch on Yahaba’s terms. To soften it up a little, he adds, “Don’t make me get my news from Iwa-chan.”  
  
“How are you guys?” Yahaba asks. He stifles a cough. “I mean, how is your team down there? And school, how’s school?”  
  
“The team is fine, school is fine, and Iwa-chan would be fine if he’d just take a Valium or something.”  
  
Tooru doesn’t look, doesn’t hear anything other than a quick rustle, but he still ducks in time for the pen Hajime throws to go sailing over his head and smack into the far wall of the bedroom.  
  
“Two Valiums, actually.”

* * *

  
09-Oct-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_We saw there is a storm in your area._  
_Please write back so we know you_ _’re safe._  
_Love,  
Auntie_

* * *

**_  
_** There are days where everything is harder than it has to be. Sometimes it starts slow: it’s difficult to get up, or it takes some extra motivation to get Tooru out the door and to campus. Some days it’s a slow build where everything starts fine and gradually descends into a slog until Tooru’s feet are leaden and his legs are too tired to keep trudging on.  
  
Now and then, there’s a day that has it out for him, beginning to end.  
  
Tooru can’t describe the why or the how of it. It’s something in his muscles, something that nags in the back of his mind and slows his reactions, compounding on itself over and over until he’s fidgety and distracted. Everything feels ten times more potent. His emotions run wild at the slightest provocation; that roadblock between his brain and mouth dissolves and he can either expend a huge amount of effort trying to moderate himself, or every errant thought in his head will slip off his tongue.  
  
It’s a slow build sort of day, the worst kind—one where it doesn’t start until well into the evening and Tooru already knows tomorrow will be nonstop. He stays up too late, fights sleep for two hours before crawling into bed and then he’s stuck waiting for his brain to shut down long enough to drift off.  
  
Back home in Miyagi, he’d stare at his bedroom ceiling, count the glow-in-the-dark stars he stuck up there when he was in middle school and trace the various constellations he’d arranged them in the shapes of. At the time, he’d painstakingly recreated his favorites—the Ursas, Gemini, Draco—and then in high school he’d tried to rearrange the day-glo plastic stars into the scene of a night sky in late June, halfway between his birthday and Hajime’s. The tacky adhesive on the backs ripped the paint off the ceiling and refused to stick again, so Tooru left it alone in the end—but he always stared up at that ceiling wishing he could rearrange the stars into some realistic middle-ground rather than a hodgepodge fantasy.  
  
There is better scenery in Tokyo. Tooru lies on his side, arms pulled in close to his chest, and traces the outline of Hajime’s nose, jaw, and ears in the dark. He clenches his fists and keeps his hands to himself, but aches to reach out and rearrange the space between them into something better and more real.  
_  
_ Hajime wakes up at five every morning and goes running. It doesn’t matter if they have practice or a game, or even if they are supposed to have a day off. He’s been doing this every day since the beginning of their third year at Seijou.  
  
Since the end of summer break, Makki has taken to calling promptly at five-thirty to provide Tooru with some random combination of mockery, sympathy, advice, or outright singing, _‘Oikawa and Iwaizumi sitting in a tree_.’ The commitment is admirable, but Tooru would give just about anything in the universe to take back the seven text messages he drunkenly sent Makki that got him into this mess.  
  
Tooru feels like he’s only just drifted asleep—vague impressions of seeking warmth and sharp angles still fogging his thoughts—when the incessant wailing of his phone annoys him enough to slap at the screen and hope he hits the side to ignore the call. Today, he hits _accept_ instead.  
  
“Morning, sunshine!” Makki croons. “This is your daily reminder that you should man up and do the right thing for your heart chakra or whatever.”  
  
Tooru blinks until he can see enough of his surroundings to find his phone. Makki has already hung up.  
  
‘ _Love you, too!_ _’_ the phone chirps a moment later. Then, ‘ _Oh, and I need to borrow that blue hat of yours._ _’_  
  
Tooru is certain that after a little more practice, he’ll master the art of falling asleep vindictively. Just a few more calls at five-thirty on the dot should do it.  
  
The next time he wakes, he has a new message, the latest in a series that have been coming in steadily over the past two weeks. Bokuto is more persistent than Tooru expected. Apparently not even being blatantly ignored, then tersely rejected, _then_ stood up is enough to make Bokuto give up the chase. Tooru just wishes he knew what Bokuto wants, but he’s too nervous to do anything more than answer direct questions, if he answers at all.  
  
_‘Lunch?’_ the message reads. Then another, only a minute later. _‘My treat.’_  
  
The first time Bokuto asked, Tooru tried to be accommodating. Bokuto wanted to talk? Fine. Tooru made the plans, went about his life as normal, and then, half a block from the little diner halfway between their schools, Tooru turned right around and got on a train heading in the opposite direction. _To hell with this_ , he’d thought. _There_ _’s already guilt to spare._  
  
In a fit of karma, the universe saw fit to ensure that the next seven days were packed with nothing but misery. His favorite shirt ripped, he flat out _lost_ an entire textbook somewhere in his apartment, he still can’t find it, the kitchen flooded for reasons Tooru is not certain he understands even after Hajime explained it twice, and he got a spider bite right where his glasses rest on his ear. But the worst of it, the absolute most crushing part of it was losing a point on a damn near flawless serve that _could_ have been perfect with just the slightest bit more focus. He _felt_ that he was too wound up, knew instantly that his shot was just a hair off, and as he watched the ball sail back in slow-motion he knew that if he’d just been _better_ that ball wouldn’t even be in the air.  
  
It makes Tooru feel weak—and that’s not exactly a new feeling, but he’s not used to it cropping up so slow and sinister, throughout every facet of his life. He can hardly sit still. Every little piece of his world is falling apart and he’s helpless to stop it.  
  
The hardest part is that he can’t take this to Hajime like he normally would. Hajime would know how to deal with this because he is decisive and strong, and Tooru just… isn’t. Tooru is determined, has an iron will and more stubbornness than is healthy, but he’s a man of preparation. His risks are calculated, practiced, with losses predetermined to be acceptable.  
  
With a heavy sigh, Tooru gets out of bed and reads the calendar like it’s his horoscope, the word _‘fidelity’_ crisp and bold against white paper. He likes this one, it’s another Hajime word: strong and resilient; steady; indomitable. Tooru isn’t strong, he is the embodiment of that tiny footnote on the page for July 20th, folded up and hidden in one of the inner pockets of his wallet.  
  
This day is one that is difficult from beginning to end, and Tooru can’t muster up the fortitude to go out into the world with a smiling face pretending everything is okay. He is naked, exposed. There’s nothing to hold him together out there, it’ll all come spilling out in a giant, complicated mess. Tooru puts on Hajime’s Nittaidai hoodie and wraps himself up in the blanket from the couch, then the one from his bed—hopes all these bandages will keep the wound closed and stop his guts from falling all over the floor. Sugazilla sits on the couch, and Tooru curls up next to it with his head resting in the crook of its neck, some poor imitation of Hajime but comforting all the same.  
  
_Fukurodani versus Mujinazaka_ at the Spring Nationals has a near-permanent home in the DVD player, only swapped out occasionally for _Fukurodani versus Nekoma_. Tooru’s watched this match so many times now that he knows it by heart. It is a beautiful game, one of his favorites. There’s something so poignant in the way Bokuto and Akaashi compensate for each other’s ups and downs, have each other’s backs in no uncertain terms.  
  
Tooru is romanticizing things, he’s letting his imagination run away to try and ease the wistful longing at odds with his stubbornness. The secret trapped behind his ribs feels fragile and malnourished, and that’s not what Tooru wants, he wants it to be dauntless, like Hajime. He wants it living alongside his heartbeat for the rest of his life—and on these days when it’s harder than it has to be that’s going to be okay because it _has_ to be.

* * *

  
18-Oct-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_We ran into your brother today, he spent so long bragging about you!_  
_Let me know if there_ _’s anything we can do for Takeru’s club._  
_You know we_ _’re always happy to help._  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_

* * *

**  
** Tooru should not be at the gym.  
  
He knows this. He accepts it as fact, and when—not if—Hajime catches him, Tooru will have to confront the reason _why_ he keeps doing this. There are no more chances. Hajime won’t let him get away with being so reckless again.  
  
This may be a different gymnasium in a different city—the flooring has better traction and the ceiling is so much higher than at Seijou—but it is still the place Tooru feels most comfortable. He is at ease in his skin, has total control over his body.  
  
The ball leaves his fingertips in a graceful toss, Tooru _runs,_ _jumps, slams_ his palm to the center of the ball, gaze zeroed in on the hoop sitting in the back right corner across the net. For a fraction of a second, he is weightless and numb, his energy flows through his palm and into the ball, over the net. Everything feels _perfect_. Then, he lands with the echoing slap of sneakers against the flooring, little twinges in his joints that go ignored in favor of the pleasant burn cascading through his muscles.  
  
There is a weight settled over Tooru’s shoulders, something inexplicable, tense, and eager. As it presses down, something else floats to the surface: a cruel part of him that wants to spend all night at the gym serving over and over, until his form is flawless and his knee is shattered and Hajime will have to cradle him in his arms when he carries Tooru back home.  
  
Tooru should stop. He needs to stop, and the memory of Hajime looming overhead snarling that they should be beyond this sort of juvenile thing haunts him as he whispers, “Just one more.”  
  
_Wham!_ He wants to be an anchor around Hajime’s neck.  
_  
Wham!_ Wants to chain them together and never allow them to be parted.  
_  
Wham!_ Wants to drown them in the depths of the Pacific where no one can see and no one can reach.  
  
_Wham!_ If Tooru destroys himself, will Hajime stay forever trying to put him back together?  
_  
Whoosh!_ The ball goes careening into the net. Shame settles into Tooru’s limbs, too heavy to lift. He folds in on himself and squeezes his eyes shut so hard it feels like his lungs are frozen and something is going to pop from the pressure in his skull. It builds and builds, fills out everything that used to be empty and refuses to leave him.  
  
It takes a few minutes to get himself back under control enough to gather up the volleyballs strewn across the gym. He showers and changes on auto-pilot, not at all surprised the sun has completely set and streetlights have buzzed awake.  
  
The air is getting crisp, a chill setting in now that winter is around the corner. It feels like just yesterday was full of summer heat and the thing breaking Tooru into pieces was only a little, innocuous feeling instead of this massive, sprawling beast constantly hungering for more.  
  
He turns toward the dorms without thinking about it, ducks his head as he climbs the stairs and shuffles down the hall, hoping no one notices him. Kuroo’s door is propped open with a doorstop, so Tooru takes it as an invitation and kicks it away when he pushes inside.  
  
Kuroo glances up from an old, worn paperback he’s reading, one leg crossed over the other as he balances on the back two legs of his desk chair. His dorm room is a lot like Bokuto’s—posters everywhere and lights strung over the walls. In between Kuroo’s stacks of sports equipment are books and binders. There is a surprising lack of clothes strewn over the floor compared to the last time Tooru was here.  
  
“You look terrible.”  
  
Tooru shrugs. He feels too sluggish for comebacks. He climbs onto Kuroo’s bed and huddles in the corner, pulls his arms inside Hajime’s hoodie that he’s basically claimed for himself by this point, and ducks his chin under the hem. Hajime hasn’t even complained about it yet; he’s been wearing Tooru’s old Outer Limits one instead. It’s hard to look at—does something funny to Tooru’s stomach that makes him feel like he’s dissolving from the inside-out.  
  
“I hear Iwaizumi met a girl,” Kuroo says as he flips a page.  
  
“It won’t last.”  
  
“You should be careful saying stuff like that when you mean it the way you do.” There is no judgment from Kuroo, merely observation and advice to watch his company.  
  
“It won’t, though.” This time, Tooru sounds like he’s begging instead of making a mean-spirited promise.  
  
The legs of Kuroo’s chair come to the floor with a _bang_ , and a moment later he tosses a volleyball magazine Tooru’s way. “You can sleep on Akaashi’s futon if you want.”  
  
“It’s Akaashi’s? Why does he have a futon here?”  
  
“He crashes sometimes.” Kuroo doesn’t offer any more explanation for it. Another time Tooru would pry but he has topics of his own he doesn’t want to talk about. Kuroo’s always been good with quid pro quo.  
  
Kuroo opens his book back up and reads without another word. Now and then he flips a page or shifts his weight in his chair. The quiet rustles at odds with the ones from the magazine Tooru scans through are the only sounds that break up the fading tension as the evening slips away.  
  
“If it makes you feel better, you’re probably right,” Kuroo says. He sets his book down and stands with a yawn. After shuffling through his dresser drawers he throws a shirt and a pair of soft, worn pajama pants at Tooru’s face. “I doubt this one’s going to last long, but that’s not going to be true forever unless you get your head out of your ass.”  
  
It won’t last, there’s almost no chance of it because Hajime doesn’t like dating. There’s a large possibility that Hajime doesn’t even like girls, but like Hajime has made it clear he won’t read any further into Tooru’s mood than he has to, Tooru long ago decided the same. Some things are private, some secrets need to be kept. Hajime might not realize it in the first place. Either way, Tooru certainly doesn’t tell Hajime about these things, either.  
  
Whatever Hajime has with that girl will fizzle out once he loses his patience for it. He’s never been comfortable figuring out where the lines are and he doesn’t like having anyone else in his space if he can help it. The same thing happens every time: she’ll get too close and Hajime will back away. Tooru’s always been the only exception, the only person who can get away with a casual arm slung over his shoulders or little, innocent touches hidden beneath the kotatsu.  
  
The idea of that changing, too, is more than he can deal with. Tooru won’t allow himself to be replaced.

* * *

  
22-Oct-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_Just made our plans to attend the Spring Qualifiers._  
_We_ _’ll be cheering for Seijou for you!_  
_Let_ _’s plan to talk after the game._  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_

  
There are rare occasions where Tooru wishes he were more eloquent. He can snap a comeback with the best of them but when it comes to expressing more complex thoughts with words he falls short every time. Maybe he should enroll in debate. He’d probably be good at it; Tooru likes to talk until people agree with him.  
  
Most of the time it’s not a big deal, but there are certain days where Tooru would appreciate the ability to be a bit more dignified. Today is an excellent example. Tooru would kill for the ability to think something more coherent about Hajime’s girlfriend rather than the constant growling in his head that sounds suspiciously like, _‘She sucks.’_  
  
She does suck, but that’s not the point.  
  
“How did you do that thing with your voice where it was almost yelling but not in the way we felt we were getting yelled at?” Yahaba asks, the latest in an increasingly long line of questions getting more and more desperate each time he asks one.  
  
“It’s a sort of lilting bellow,” Tooru says like he has any idea what that means. Yahaba won’t either, though, it’s fine.  
  
Yahaba is a good distraction. He keeps Tooru from getting too on-track thinking about the silly girl Hajime’s been spending his time with and prevents the grating ‘ _she sucks she sucks she sucks_ _’_ echoing in his head from turning into a full-on rant as he paces the full length from the living room, through the kitchen, to the front door. Hajime doesn’t even like her, what the hell is he playing at?  
  
“What about with Iwaizumi? How did you get him to do what you said so easily?”  
  
Tooru has spent months upon months over the summer and fall cultivating a new, collaborative relationship with Yahaba, on top of the months he spent preparing him to be Seijou’s next captain. Never in all that time has Yahaba talked about Hajime as much as he has in the past month.  
  
“What’s going on? Where are all these questions coming from?”  
  
“They just don’t want to listen to me! How did this never happen to you?!”  
  
“You need to get those rose-colored glasses off your face. There were plenty of times where you all totally ignored me.”  
  
“Not like this,” Yahaba insists.  
  
There are a few ways Tooru could approach this, but Yahaba has always appreciated being direct. “Who’s being difficult?”  
  
A pause, then a sigh. “I can’t get Kunimi invested, and Kyoutani is… I think he just needs a stronger captain.”  
  
“If I didn’t think you could handle Mad Dog, I wouldn’t have left you in charge.”  
  
“Well, what if you were wrong?”  
  
Here, it is better to show confidence. “Are you saying I was so careless as to leave the team I spent three years growing into a powerhouse without thinking through who I’d be leaving them _with?_ ”  
  
“No, but—”  
  
“Don’t you dare ‘no, but’ me,” Tooru says. Yeah, he’d be _awesome_ at debate. “What exactly do you think the difference was, from your first year, to last year, to now?”  
  
“He respected you—”  
  
“He did _not._ ” Tooru is baffled beyond the telling of it that Yahaba could be so delusional. Did he hit his head? Eat some bad fish? “Mad Dog _never_ listened to a word I said, and you know that better than anyone because guess who he _did_ listen to?”  
  
“Iwai—”  
  
“ _You_. He listened to you, and it’s only a matter of how to make him listen again.”  
  
In a small, worried voice Yahaba asks, “What if it’s complicated now?”  
  
Tooru is positive he knows where this conversation is going—all the twists and turns it will take on its way, the pit stops and detours, all the things Yahaba isn’t saying. He stares out the balcony door at the city lights blinking on as the evening sun fades. It is still difficult to see himself in someone who looks up to him when they’re better than he is—and there is no mistaking it, Yahaba is better than him with this. Yahaba is trying to psych himself up to ask, has been trying to lead the conversation and create an opening however clumsy his efforts are; Tooru is still pretending there isn’t a question at all.  
  
Maybe the spirit of competition is what he needs to shore up the courage to finally let Yahaba get his chance. “What’s complicated?”  
  
“We’re just—” Yahaba exhales too close to the mic. “We’re becoming friends, sort of. It’s hard to be his captain and his friend, especially when he won’t listen to me in practice.”  
  
Little lies told to make the truth easier to handle. That is something Tooru is adept with.  
  
Out in the city, the sunset has everything washed out in burnt orange. Tooru’s reflection swallows and bites his lip; it’s his biggest tell and he should work on controlling it. The fading sunlight reflects on the rooftops sprawling outside his door.  
  
Coach Irihata tried so hard to hammer it into Tooru’s head that trust is a mutual thing. _‘Your team won’t trust you if you don’t trust them, too.’_ and ‘ _If you_ _’re not going to be honest, at least be honest about_ that _._ _’_ It was advice that never clicked for Tooru—too contradictory with a nuance he couldn’t wrap his head around—but he thinks he understands now.  
  
Tooru feels a heady intuition, not unlike a perfect read on the court, or a flash of insight into a difficult puzzle. He knows what the question here is, but even though Yahaba wants to ask he never will, not unless Tooru gives a little bit of himself first. The determination swells through him, rides up his spine and settles in the base of his neck.  
  
Before Tooru can tell himself not to, he says, “I respect Iwaizumi more than you can imagine. It would have been easy to say he was being difficult, or not listening to me just to be a jerk—but the truth is that the things he had to say were important, whether I realized it right away or not. When I had to learn to make people listen to me, I also had to learn to listen to him.  
  
“It gets easier with time and practice. I think, anyway.” Tooru huffs and draws a little smiley face in the fog his breath leaves on the door. “Coach kept telling me I’ll get there eventually, so I guess I should say the same to you. We’ll get there.”  
  
Tooru needs to do _better_. He needs to have better relationships with the people who look up to him as well as with his teammates and rivals, needs to improve his leadership skills if he’s going to get where he wants to. It can’t always be about breaking down people into strengths and weaknesses and pulling them along the court like puppets.  
  
The order doesn’t feel as impossible as it used to.  
  
So, Tooru asks again, because maybe Yahaba is like him in more ways than he realizes. Maybe Yahaba also needs someone to keep asking until he’s ready to tell. “What’s complicated, Yahaba?”  
  
The pause feels claustrophobic. Then, Yahaba says, “I’m just worried I’m not good enough to get them a win when they deserve it.”  
  
_‘Me, too’_ rests on the tip of Tooru’s tongue, but he’s not ready to talk about the vicious snarling in the back of his head or why his ribs feel like they’re bowed outward.  
  
“It’s not just about you,” Tooru says, reminiscent of a conversation had long ago with his own complication. “The better team of six is the one that will walk away the winner. Give them sets that make them shine. Remember that they are good without you, and better because you are there with them. That’s all you can do.”  
  
His words feel genuine and kind in a way that he’s never experienced before. It is real, meaningful guidance instead of platitudes meant to make someone stop asking questions or misdirection to avoid being too helpful to the people he feels like he’s competing against even when they’re on the same side.  
  
“Thanks, Oikawa-san.”  
  
“Any time.”

* * *

  
17-Nov-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_I would love to chat._  
_Please call me._  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_

* * *

**  
** If Tooru didn’t know better, he’d swear Kuroo and Makki were conspiring against him. It’s too much to be a coincidence, their timing is too perfect. Tooru narrows his eyes and stubbornly maintains eye contact with Kuroo as they glare at each other in the back of the diner he stood Bokuto up at all those weeks ago. He should have known this was a trap.  
  
“This,” Kuroo says, standing infuriatingly tall at the end of the booth so that not only is escape impossible, but Tooru also has to crane his neck an entirely unreasonable forty-five degrees just to look him in the face, “is an intervention.”  
  
“An intervention,” Tooru repeats. No, this isn’t a coincidence. Makki _planned_ this. He baited Tooru here to this diner, faked his emergency, and then sicced Kuroo on him. Kuroo, who just so happens to have one Bokuto Koutarou in tow.  
  
“Hey, Oikawa!” Bokuto says with far too much enthusiasm, drawing the attention of half the diner.  
  
Tooru shakes his head and keeps glaring at Kuroo. Across the varnished, wooden table, Bokuto slides into the booth and starts reading over the menu, the red of his jacket fierce against the brown and beige stripes of the backrest.  
  
“Well, no, not really, but it sounded good, right?” Kuroo shrugs and makes a vague, _what can you do_ -type of gesture. To Bokuto, he says, “We’re even now.”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” Bokuto agrees and purses his lips. “What do you think is the worst thing I can get away with ordering? I mean, I want to be bad but not _bad,_ bad _._ ”  
  
Okay, so not an intervention, but Tooru simply cannot shake the suspicion that Makki has a hand in this somewhere. Maybe after he escapes from the lunch date from hell he’ll hunt Makki down and start a thorough review of where each of them stands on blackmail. Tooru definitely has more even after all those text messages; it’s important to remind Makki of that every now and again.  
  
“Just get the french toast, you haven’t shut up about wanting it in weeks.” Kuroo gives each of them a nod before turning on his heel. “Catch you guys later.”  
  
And with that, Kuroo is gone and Tooru is mapping out the route back to the train station and trying to remember the schedule. He wants to make the platform with seconds to spare in case Bokuto’s off his rocker and decides to chase him.  
  
“I _am_ gonna have that french toast,” Bokuto says. “You want anything? At least eat or get something to drink before you ditch me.”  
  
To call Tooru out so casually rubs him the wrong way, it’s a little jab in the part of his personality labeled ‘stubborn pride’ and it is embarrassing how well it works. In the end, Tooru tells himself that he stays because he can’t sit around being nervous wondering what Bokuto wants anymore. He’ll rip his hair out, and _that_ would be far more tragic than anything Bokuto could do to him.  
  
Well, if he’s going to hang around, best to get the ugly part out of the way. “I’m sorry about—”  
  
“No worries,” Bokuto says, voice firm with a hard gesture between them. “And I started it, anyway. So, I’m sorry, too.”  
  
“Still,” Tooru mutters. “S’awkward.”  
  
Bokuto chuckles. “Nah. It’s not a big deal, not even top ten, really. If you want to hear a real horror story, ask Kuroo about the time he was the little spoon. Anyway, don’t worry about any of it. It’s water over the boat.”  
  
“Huh?” It’s an utterly bizarre sensation, this _tingling_ where he doesn’t think that’s quite right _and_ he might know the correct saying. Is the calendar helping? _Is this how Hajime feels all the time?_  
  
“It’s just something Akaashi says.”  
  
The awkwardness eases as they place their orders. Bokuto gets the french toast, Tooru a more reasonable salad that he pokes and prods but only eats the toppings and none of the lettuce or dressing.  
  
Meaningless conversation breaks the silence as they eat. Tooru stares at his lettuce and talks about Takeru’s volleyball club starting up again courtesy of some outrageous appointments by Yahaba and how he hasn’t decided if he’s going to step in or not. Honestly, it probably won’t do any harm; Takeru can take Kunimi and Mad Dog, Tooru’s just not sure Yahaba will survive the retribution.  
  
In return, Bokuto shares some rather tame stories of trouble he got up to during his time at Fukurodani, including one rather impressive eight-day streak of detentions his first year that got him suspended from the volleyball team for two weeks.  
  
It’s almost easy enough that Tooru can forget that Bokuto certainly has an agenda.  
  
Once he’s done with his food, Bokuto turns abruptly serious. “So, hey, I’m sorry for the ambush but I wanted to talk to you real quick without Kuroo around and it’s not really an over the phone-type of thing. You know it’s going to be okay, right? Just… in general? This thing you have with your roommate, it’ll work out.”  
  
Even _Bokuto_ knows? Just how horrendously obvious is Tooru about this?  
  
Tooru drops his arms to either side of his plate, very carefully keeps his hands still, flat against the table. He doesn’t have the fortitude for this conversation, except his mouth isn’t paying any attention to the rest of him and runs away. “I can’t talk about it.”  
  
“Yeah, I get that. ‘Cause if you say it you’re letting it out, right? You’re letting it be real, and that makes it harder to deal with.” Bokuto pauses and rubs his palms together like he’s cold. He pushes his plate toward the edge of the table to clear the space in front of him. After a moment he moves Tooru’s plate of lettuce out of the way as well. “Kuroo said something to me once about how Iwaizumi is sort of like Akaashi, so I’d like to offer some advice if you want it.”  
  
Tooru drops his gaze to the empty table between his hands. Traces the grains of the wood between his palms and wonders how much harm it could do to confide in someone so distant who already knows his deep, dark secrets anyway. With a thick swallow, Tooru nods, hesitant but firm enough to be obvious. When he glances up, Bokuto is sitting at an angle in the corner of the booth. He has an eye on Tooru, but mostly he’s watching the diner around them instead of staring.  
  
“Don’t get caught up thinking you don’t want something just because you think you can’t have it. Take your wins when you can get ‘em, and deal with the losses as they come—but don’t give up, and don’t stop.” Bokuto shrugs, easy and accepting. “Can’t shut everything else out, either. You have to live your life and do your best to be happy. That’s what they want for us, you know; that’s what’s important to them. Gotta be satisfied knowing that some day you’ll knock a hole in the wall, ‘cause if your guy really is like Akaashi, he doesn’t have doors to kick down or windows to crawl through.”  
  
Oh, this must be why Akaashi has a futon in Kuroo’s dorm room and didn’t mind hiding away with Tooru while he sobbed his heart out instead of partying with his friends. Tooru’s not sure he gets it, not entirely, but he understands it enough if he slots Hajime into Akaashi’s place and imagines a bit more distance. He can see why Kuroo would compare them.  
  
“He’s not mine,” Tooru mutters, and it hurts so much more to say it out loud.  
  
“Sure he is. Not in the way you want, maybe, but more than he’d ever be for anyone else, right? You have to let that be enough. It’s the ‘unconditional’ part.”  
  
It hits so hard Tooru loses his air with a _whoosh._ His head spins. He’s never thought of it like that before, has never put that emphasis on it or looked at it from this angle. Tooru’s love for Hajime has always been framed in terms of Tooru—and Bokuto is right, it should be about Hajime instead.  
  
“Just the kind of thing I wish someone said to me a year earlier, you know?”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
Tooru feels it welling inside him, and in the moment he looks at Bokuto—empathetic without Tooru ever having to say a word—it bursts. Tooru breaks open and everything comes spilling out.  
  
“I love him. He loves me, too, but I never realized there are _ways_ you love people and what if the way he loves me is different? What if it’s like with our friends or volleyball. What if the way he loves me is like how I love my nephew? I can’t risk it. Not for anything. I am— I _cannot_ lose him.”  
  
“Yeah. It feels that way, for sure, but…” Bokuto glances at Tooru, gives him a sad look, and presses his lips together like he’s not sure if he should finish.  
  
Tooru doesn’t have enough stamina to let this conversation draw out any further than it has to. “What?”  
  
“It’ll never end unless you do something about it. Aren’t you tired?”  
  
Yes. Tooru is exhausted from the moment he wakes up every day. He’s stumbling through his life half-asleep and unfocused. It’s not acceptable. Tooru didn’t work so hard the last three years just to mope around Tokyo and give anything less than the very best he is capable of. He doesn’t feel like himself anymore. That untamable seed he planted next to his heart has put down roots and grown wild, has clawed its way through him at every conceivable level, right down to his toes—and it has fundamentally changed him in a way that Tooru can’t fully comprehend. There is no for better or for worse to go along with it, either, it just _is._  
  
Tooru never used to be so skittish. No matter what happened, he could always skate by on that part of him that’s wired to be over-confident, worries be damned and consequences ignored until later. Twelve months ago, Tooru was happy to take a sledgehammer to those walls of Hajime’s for no reason other than that he could. It didn’t do any good then, just like it won’t now, but maybe it means something that Hajime’s never done anything but stand there and let Tooru beat on them to his heart’s content. Maybe it’s important that Hajime seems confused and distressed that Tooru’s hung up that sledgehammer for a flyswatter.  
  
Or, maybe none of this means anything at all, because Hajime let Tooru move in when they came to Tokyo. Tooru doesn’t need to break down walls.  
  
Anxiety rushes from Tooru’s feet to his scalp. It’s easy to think he can’t—he can’t do this, can’t be this brave, and can’t handle asking this question—but then Bokuto offers an understanding smile and Tooru’s nerves disappear long enough to ask, “How did you start trying? With Akaashi.”  
  
“I just kept at it. Went for it the second I saw an in and did my best to never let up even if I had to back down. Brought him lunch and helped him clean up after practice, always asked him to come with me if I had something to do on the off-chance he’d say yes. That kind of stuff. He didn’t get it at first which was pretty cute, but the ball was in his court for a _long_ time, and he caught on eventually.”  
  
Tooru doesn’t like that plan. It’s too passive, honestly. His sarcasm is on point when he drawls, “How romantic.”  
  
“It’s not about being romantic, smartass. It’s about… well, it’s about being you.” This time, Bokuto’s smile turns fond. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I honestly came here just wanting to say it’ll work out and let you know that you don’t have to go through it alone if you don’t want to. You can have a friend who gets it.”  
  
“I—” Tooru bites his lip and draws little circles on the tabletop with his index finger. “I think I would like that.”  
  
Bokuto grins. “It’ll be nice for me, too, just so you know. Don’t get me wrong, Kuroo is awesome, but he doesn’t really get this kind of thing.”  
  
The tension in Tooru’s shoulders eases for the first time since catching sight of Kuroo walking in the front door of the restaurant.  
  
“Now, on to more important matters.” Bokuto shifts around and puts both feet back on the floor. He folds his arms on the table and leans forward on his elbows. The smirk on his face is uncomfortably similar to the one he wore right before he stuck his tongue in Tooru’s mouth. “Kuroo. Let’s trade information.”  
  
Finally, a conversation that Tooru can excel in. He leans forward as well, huddles up a bit to get the right atmosphere to hang over their booth. Something along the lines of _conspiracy_ blended with just a hint of _backstabbing_. Kuroo betrayed Tooru first, after all, and they already established that turnabout is fair play.  
  
“I’m sure we could arrange something. Kuro-chan isn’t exactly in my good graces at the moment.”  
  
Bokuto groans. “This whole thing was totally my idea, don’t hold it against him too much, okay? He owed me so much for letting that bet over Nationals go.”  
  
“Bet over Nationals?” Tooru asks. He can _smell_ it, this one’s going to be good.  
  
“Oho,” Bokuto says, perking up. “And what will you offer me for this unbelievably hilarious story?”  
  
Damn it, Tooru was too eager. “Fine. I’ll make sure you’re paid in full. Now, spill.”  
  
_“Please_ , you don’t stay friends with Kuroo without learning a painful lesson about agreeing on terms first.” Bokuto points across the table. “I want you to come out and teach me your scary ass serve. Not gonna lie, I’m desperate to be across the net from that thing just to see if I can dig it without losing an arm. Bring your guy, too, I am _dying_ to meet this dude. Half the time it sounds like you and Kuroo are talking about totally different people.”  
  
“You want me to bring Iwa-chan out to Chuo and teach you my serve?” Tooru asks because… well, he’s not sure why. It’s a horrible idea and there’s absolutely no way he’s going to go through with it. “Why don’t I just tell you about the time Kuroo ate twelve—”  
  
Bokuto interrupts him with an obnoxiously loud laugh. “I guarantee you, you cannot beat me at this. Come out to Chuo, bring your guy. I’ll get Akaashi to come down, it’ll be like a double date except our dates will have no idea. Sounds fun, right?”  
  
It does, in a bizarre way, but Tooru’s been hoping he’ll never see Akaashi again. That Tooru lost it so _thoroughly_ in front of him is far more humiliating than he’s willing to put up with. Best to scrub it from his memory and avoid the unfortunate witness forever.  
  
“Come on man,” Bokuto says. He’s still smirking, has a knowing glint in his eye that gets Tooru’s competitiveness revving up. “Or are you afraid of pushing a little?”  
  
Tooru says, “Terrified,” like it’s sarcastic. They both know it’s not; they also both know that Bokuto’s won this little spar.  
  
“I’ll give you until New Year’s.” Bokuto waits for Tooru to nod. “Okay, you’re just not going to believe this shit. You know that blocker Karasuno’s got? The blond one with the glasses? So, first day of Spring Nationals last year—”  
  
_Shit._ Tooru’s pretty sure he already knows this one.

* * *

  
25-Nov-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_You will call me, or I will come to visit. Your choice._  
_The train leaves at 2pm._  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_

* * *

  
Someone once told Tooru that falling in love is like getting set on fire. What a load of crap.  
  
There is no falling, Tooru’s always been burning at the bottom of this canyon, both eyes focused on Hajime at the edge of the ridge above. He likes Bokuto’s house metaphor better, it involves less vertigo and no blisters. Though, the fire is a bit fitting given the current situation Tooru has found himself in. It’s a two-fold disaster closing in from all sides, a raging inferno that Tooru can’t escape.  
  
First, there is Hajime. Hajime, who can apparently go out for one night on the town with Kuroo and come back home with: a personal revelation; the last person Tooru wants to see again; and enough fortitude to process everything after only one measly meltdown instead of the fourteen that Tooru had.  
  
What the _hell_ , really? This is unfair to the highest degree, Tooru could make a list of the atrocities involved. Scratch that, he’s _going to._  
  
One: Bokuto broke the rules; Tooru had until New Year’s to bring Hajime out. He doesn’t get to sub in Kuroo to lure Hajime down like this, and Tooru doesn’t care which of them wants to take the blame for it—he’s _choosing_ to pin this on Bokuto.  
  
Two: Akaashi. Tooru could understand it if Hajime had kissed literally _anyone_ else, but no, it has to be the guy quasi-dating the guy that Tooru drunkenly made out with at a party and then had an uncomfortable but ultimately enlightening lunch with last week. Not only that but also the guy who sat in a quiet, dark dorm room at Chuo with Tooru while he sobbed into his knees under Christmas tree lights and sent a hundred candid text messages to everyone he knows. And _not only that_ but the guy who apparently has no windows or doors, who’s even more stoic than Hajime? Akaashi _?_ It had to be _Akaashi?_ Tooru cannot comprehend the simple matter of _how_ it happened in the first place.  
  
Three: The _nerve_ of Akaashi to quietly assure Tooru that he hadn’t and wouldn’t say a word about what happened over break, and then— _right after—_ sit in Tooru’s living room and tell Hajime that yes, Tooru and Bokuto know each other. Sure, Tooru didn’t flat-out demand total silence over the matter, but it was _implied_ and Akaashi grabbed that loophole on purpose.  
  
Four: Hajime is staring. He doesn’t notice that he’s doing it, but Tooru catches him so many times a day that it’s unbelievable that he hasn’t realized it yet. It is making Tooru insane. The back of his neck is constantly prickling; there’s a horrendous itch creeping all over his skin, reducing him to a jittery mess.  
  
Five: Tooru can’t say a damn word about any of this.  
  
The last point is the most problematic.  
  
To Hajime, this is something to be happy about. It’s a relief and an understanding he’s been chasing for a long time now. Tooru may have suspected, but he never thought it would come out like this, so quick and rapid-fire with such a steady resolve. He didn’t think Hajime would turn right around and tell him before he even had a chance to digest it—but Hajime’s always been courageous like that, and he’s never been one for long, drawn-out mulling.  
  
No, Tooru won’t ruin this for anything, he has to keep his mouth shut. He can’t bitch about points one through four because more than he wants to knock Bokuto and Akaashi’s stupid heads together and scream to the heavens about the general lack of fairness in his life, he wants to support his favorite person in any way he can.  
  
If, maybe, there is the faintest glimmer of hope saturating the knot in his chest, well that is a separate thing that Tooru refuses to pay any mind. He buries his anger somewhere deep and dark because it is the right thing to do, and it is what Hajime needs from him.  
  
Second—because the entire Iwaizumi family is out to give Tooru a nervous breakdown—there is Auntie.  
  
Tooru cannot allow Auntie to come down to Tokyo like she’s threatening to. Hajime will want to know why she’s come, and there’s no good explanation. She’s never talked to either of them about each other, but she also won’t lie to Hajime about it. The deflection will be enough to get Hajime curious; he won’t let it go without answers.  
  
This is something that has to be _shut down_ except Tooru _can_ _’t_ , Auntie has him cornered and she knows it. He still tries to weasel his way out but his sloppy excuses only receive a picture of the train station captioned with _‘It’s not bad, but we have to talk.’_  
  
So, instead of heading home for lunch with Hajime, Tooru walks in the opposite direction until he finds a bench that looks suitable for getting his heart ripped to shreds, and dials.  
  
“Tooru.” She answers on the second ring. Warmth flows through the speaker and settles his nerves.  
  
“Hi, Auntie.”  
  
She gives him no time to back out.  
  
“I think it will be best if I talk first,” Auntie says, her voice firm but not enough so that she sounds angry. “And then, if you want, I will listen for as long as you need me to.”  
  
“Okay,” Tooru agrees. There’s only one choice here and it’s not a bad deal.  
  
She takes a breath. Tooru closes his eyes and takes one of his own, preparing for whatever is to come.  
  
“I know that you have been having a hard time for a while now, and I understand that you feel like you can’t talk to me about it. I wanted to tell you, just so that we are perfectly clear and on the same page, that nothing you say or do will ever change the fact that I am here for you. Nothing will change the fact that I love you and that more than anything else, I want you to be happy.”  
  
Silence, except for Tooru’s raging pulse thundering through his veins and roaring in his ears.  
  
“That’s it. That’s all I have to say about it. See? Not so bad.”  
  
“I suppose not.” Tooru won’t cry. He won’t allow himself to break down out on this bench with the city bustling around him, but _god_ he could.  
  
“I mean it, Tooru,” Auntie says. “I know you’ve been worrying. Please don’t.”  
  
It’s always been there, ever since Tooru was eight years old: this unbelievable love that stretches from one end to the other of the Iwaizumi family tree. It is only fair that he responds in kind. Unconditionally, endlessly, without restraint.  
  
So, appreciative of how this is different from what he feels for Hajime, Tooru says, “I love you, too, Auntie.”  
  
She’s quiet for a gentle stretch as Tooru watches the people rushing past. Once it becomes apparent he’s not going to continue, she says, “I promise I won’t bring it up again, but I’m here to listen when you’re ready to talk, okay?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
With another whispered, “Love you,” Tooru hangs up the phone and stares out at the city moving around him as far as he can see in every direction. Tooru is a dot in the whole of it, invisible from a distance and childishly believing that means it all revolves around him.  
  
None of this is about Tooru alone; he’s not the center of the universe or the one who gets to decide what to do with the love that has grown within him. The important part is that Hajime should be happy, and Tooru decides that he’s going to believe Bokuto on this one. What will make Hajime happy is Tooru being happy. They are in this together.  
  
And Tooru… Tooru can be happy knowing that he doesn’t have to break a hole in the wall. Hajime can set the rules and dictate the pace, and Tooru will match him stride for stride, wherever they go. _Anywhere_ they go. There are no limits, no rules, because Hajime is the only person who Tooru loves like this _._ If there is some wishful thinking as to direction, well, Tooru thinks he may just let it seep from the writhing mass he planted next to his heart that grew into a sapling, then exploded into a mighty oak—hearty and strong, _alive_ and beautiful.  
  
There are still some universal truths. Tooru is a liar. Always has been, always will be—but sometimes when he lays down to sleep and traces the points from the subdued arch of Hajime’s overgrown eyebrows to the corner of his mouth to the little dip in his earlobe, he fantasizes about a world where he doesn’t lie so much to Hajime.  
  
When he asks again, Tooru decides. He will tell Hajime, the next time he asks.

* * *

  
26-Nov-2013  
_Dearest Tooru,_  
_Just wanted to write and say that we love you._  
_Have a wonderful day!_  
_Love,_  
_Auntie_  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Next time (next week): Kuroo just can’t deal with all this belligerent sexual tension anymore.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/frthelongestday)


End file.
